Uneasy lies the head.. article on SRK

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Uneasy lies the head…

King Khan, unwilling to abdicate, is trying on other skins to potentially disastrous effect

Raja sen

Posted On Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 02:57:24 AM

Chances are that you have seen Shah Rukh Khan's teaser commercial for his upcoming gameshow, Zor Ka Jhatka, an adaptation of the outrageous American hit Wipeout. Chances also are, quite honestly, that you have, like me, cringed.

It isn't at all pleasant to see Khan play to the galleries this blatantly, to see him struggle with a tapori catchphrase, spoof his own early TV-soldier roots, play a dimwitted schoolboy or, worse yet, throw in a forced pelvic thrust at the end of it all to go with the show's titular Jhatka. No no no.

You can see, of course, where it all comes from: Dabanng. Salman's rocked the box office, is having a hoot hosting Bigg Boss, and you don't have to be the most astute of commentators to realise desi is in. SRK, with his immaculately cut suits and his wry sense of humour, seems unfortunately yet visibly threatened by the earthier charms currently ruling the box office.

Khan looks ill at ease in roles his surname-sharers revel in

The radically rustic Ranveer Singh of Band Baaja Baaraat is not just a flavour of the season, but winning comparisons with the muddy magnetism of early Shah Rukh: a plain looking lad with enough confidence and elan to sell a character.

It is a preposterous comparison, and yet the pigeons seem to be setting upon and bothering the king cat. From critical successes like Ishqiya and LSD to box-office bandits like Rajneeti, 2010 has been all about the earthy. And Khan hasn't really had grass on his roots for over a decade, save a song-sequence in Shakti.

Over the years, he's left the Karan Arjun madness behind and graduated into becoming the country's coolest, most suave superstar. He is the style icon, the charmer, the increasingly urbane rogue in unaffordable clothes.

And so when Salman wiggles his groin for a television promo, it works, self-parody or not; Shah Rukh today will inevitably have trouble carrying off a gamchha.

He's also looking old, which isn't a bad thing at all. He's always shrugged off wrinkles and made both six-packs and jokes about his own age. Yet now, if the latest reports are to be believed, he's embarking with Vishal Bhardwaj on an adaptation of a Chetan Bhagat novel produced by Sajid Nadiadwala.

It is a peculiar combination, none of the four names really gelling, and one film-fanatics in the country are denouncing already. Creepy, truly, and while Bhardwaj can always be counted on to prove us wrong about his casting decisions, one wonders why Shah Rukh would take on 2 States, a book about young newlyweds.

Let's hope he plays father, or narrator, or Bhardwaj sets the film around in flashback. Because if this is SRK's ill-conceived attempt to do a 3 Idiots, he's in for a bit of a shocker, no matter how convincingly he goes desi with his accent.

Aamir Khan manages to be a collegeboy because youthfulness is his stock in trade. He's always been the chameleonic superstar capable of shedding years with a change in grin, turning on the boyishness at will. Shah Rukh, on the other hand, started playing dad a dozen years ago, and we can't possibly bear the thought of him being back in college – unless Farah Khan's setting up some kind of spoof.

Shah Rukh Khan is 45, and while reinvention is all well and good, he needs to look at his own constant evolution, and the fact that he's never had to rely on what was in, trendy or fashionable. Mouldbreakers shouldn't try to conform not even to a jhatka.

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